In 2008, in response to media inquiries, the President’s campaign requested his birth certificate from the state of Hawaii. The state sent the campaign the President’s birth certificate, the same legal documentation provided to all Hawaiians as proof of birth in state, and the campaign immediately posted it on the internet. That birth certificate can be seen here (PDF).

When any citizen born in Hawaii requests their birth certificate, they receive exactly what the President received. In fact, the document posted on the campaign website is what Hawaiians use to get a driver’s license from the state and the document recognized by the Federal Government and the courts for all legal purposes. That’s because it is the birth certificate. This is not and should not be an open question.

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting. President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate can be seen here (PDF):

So does this end all the crazy birther nonsense? Don’t count on it. After running 52 segments in recent weeks, pushing the birther nonsense, FOX decided to put up a breaking banner this morning saying “White House releases what it says is President Obama’s long-form birth certificate” (h/t ThinkProgress):

And then we get to the Donald. Trump is of course taking credit for all of this, and why shouldn’t he? The media bows down to America’s most famous nut-job, but what strikes me as really interesting is that Trump isn’t buying quiet yet:

Trump, speaking in New Hampshire, took credit Wednesday for the president's decision to release the document. He said his team would have to examine the birth certificate and questioned why the White House took so long, but indicated he wanted to move beyond the issue.

"Today, I'm very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish," Trump told reporters. "Why he didn't do it when everybody else was asking for it, I don't know. But I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue."

[emphasis added]

So Trump’s people are the ones who determine if this is the actual birth certificate or not. Let me guess, they won’t say anything until we find out what the poll numbers are doing. If they go down, then Trump will declare it a forgery. If they go up, Trump will declare it authentic.

This brings me to another point – where’s the Donald’s long-form birth certificate? He never released that, just the same thing Obama originally released. How do we know that Trump wasn’t actually born Germany to some Nazi family?

But where does all this put the Tea Party? Well Tea Party Nation appears to be buying this certificate for now, but next they want everything else in Obama’s history released (login required):

Obama should release his college records, as well as his attorney disciplinary records. Whether he will or not is anyone’s guess, though once Obama broke and released this document, he will have a much harder time not releasing other documents.

Funny, but I don’t remember Bush getting this much scrutiny about his past, and when the media did start digging, they ended up getting fired.

Again – what does it say about this country when a black man has to go through this much scrutiny and a white man doesn’t? I know a lot of people try to claim race has nothing to do with it, but they either drank the Kool-Aid or are flat out lying. If you think that Barack Obama, a black man, can only get into ivy league colleges because of the color of his skin, then you are a racist and if you deny that fact then you are also a coward.

This whole episode has been nothing but an embarrassment to America. The people pushing this conspiracy theory are those that long for the olden days of America, when the blacks couldn’t get on the bus or drink from the same water fountain. Even worse if the fact that we have a national media that gave voice to these morons. Thanks for trying to set out country back 50 years.